On Friday, the Tampa Bay Lightning placed 585-game NHL veteran Adam Hall on waivers. The 6’3”, 213 pound centre is a guy who in a lot of ways would look pretty good centering the Oilers’ fourth line right now. Should the team claim him?

Pros

There are definite positives to adding Hall to the roster.

Faceoffs. Hall has won 56.4% of his faceoffs this season, 59.5% of his faceoffs last season, and 55.0% of his draws the year before that. He’s also a right-handed faceoff man, where both Shawn Horcoff and Eric Belanger are lefties – he would give the Oilers their only reliable right-shooting faceoff taker (right now Sam Gagner’s basically the choice by default in that role, and he’s less than ideal for it).

Penalty killing. Hall has been the Lightning’s most-used penalty-killer in each of the last two seasons, though he’s dropped to second this year. He’s not a guy like Mike Brown, who has been used in the role in the past from time to time – he’s a specialist who gets leaned on heavily in it.

Defensive zone work. Hall’s coaches have not hesitated to use him in his own end of the rink. This year at even-strength, for example, he’s been on the ice for 13 draws in the opposition zone on 5-on-5 – and 98 in his own end. Previous years haven’t been as ludicrous, but they’ve been heavily weighted towards the defensive zone.

Physical game. Hall is big, hits regularly, and drops the gloves once or twice per year.

Versatility. Hall plays both centre and right wing.

Contract. Hall is on a one-year deal that pays him $650,000. He’s dirt cheap, and low-risk.

Cons

There are some negatives, too, some of them associated with the player and some of them associated with the team.

The 50-man list. The Oilers have 51 men under contract, 49 of them on deals that count against the NHL’s 50-contract limit this season. They’re already painfully inflexible, and adding Hall will push them to the limit.

This year’s shot metrics. It’s perhaps unsurprising, given his radically defensive-oriented start, but the Lightning have been getting dominated with Hall on the ice at even-strength. Of interest, here, is the fact that a) in previous years, Hall hasn’t been getting hammered like this and b) it’s a lack of offence, rather than poor defence. Hall’s shots for are very low but his shots against rate is roughly average with the rest of the team. So while this is technically a negative, I’d argue it’s a long way from damning.

Offence. As hinted at in the last point, Hall’s offensive numbers leave much to be desired. He has no goals and four assists in 20 games this season, and had just seven points last year. Interestingly, he has had more success in the past – in a three-year stretch with Nashville he scored he scored 43 goals – but he’s not going to be a guy who drives offensive results.

My Take

Remember back when Shawn Horcoff and Eric Belanger were hurt and the Oilers were running Chris VandeVelde as their fourth line centre? This is the guy the team should have had in the job. Judging by the fact that he’s on waivers now, he couldn’t have been all that expensive – and inserting an honest-to-goodness faceoff guy, penalty killer and useful hockey player into the centre position would have been a very good idea. The team’s refusal to address the problem and instead do things like ‘play Ryan Smyth in the middle’ and was baffling at the time and baffling in retrospect.

In a perfect world, the team would have traded for this guy a month ago, sending away something small – say a fringe prospect like Alex Plante (or for that matter Chris VandeVelde) for the player. Assuming Hall clears, he will earn $650,000 in the AHL. A guy like Plante earns $65,000; VandeVelde $62,500. Maybe Tampa Bay has some elaborate plan to fetch a better return if Hall clears waivers, but it seems unlikely that there’s a long list of teams lining up to pay a guy six figures to be in the minors.

In a less-than-perfect world, the Oilers would have sent out a contract in a trade yesterday, before the Lightning put Hall on waivers. They really need to move a contract if they want to bring this guy in.

Because of the contract limit, I would understand if the Oilers chose not to make a waiver claim. But based on his history, Adam Hall is a better NHL player than Lennart Petrell, and he fits team need in a way that none of the Oilers’ umpteen wingers do: by playing centre. With all due respect to Ryan Smyth, the Oilers are a better team with him on the wing and actual centre at centre on the fourth line.

This is exactly the kind of guy the Oilers could have used as a 13th or 14th forward while they were out signing Darcy Hordichuk and Lennart Petrell to new contracts this summer. He’s exactly the kind of guy who would have been really handy when the great centre plague of 2013 struck the team. Now, he’s arguably less important, given where the Oilers are in the standings, but he would probably still make them a better team.

Jonathan Willis is a freelance writer.
He currently works for Oilers Nation, Sportsnet, the Edmonton Journal and Bleacher Report.
He's co-written three books and worked for myriad websites, including Grantland, ESPN, The Score, and Hockey Prospectus. He was previously the founder and managing editor of Copper & Blue.

Isn't this the reason why the Oilers are not already at 50 contracts? So that when a piece comes available that fits in so many ways, they can pick it up? It's not as if they can carry forward being under the limit by one, and use it next year.

A. Hall would be a great pick up but man that 50 man contract cap is going to bite us in the ass if we want to sign a college FA. we need to trade away a contract badly, pretty sure Hall will be claimed by someone.

Boy it sure would be nice if Tambi could pull a 3 for 1 trade anytime in the last year?! This just illustrates how much it is needed to A) Bring back 1 player with more value. and B) Free up contract spots for moves when opportunity arises. I fear as stated no move will be made on this player. But if not now then surely before this summer Oilers should be freeing up more potential space? Opportunities will be there when all the teams having difficulties getting under the lowering Cap start to move players they cant afford.

And here is a link with his Corsi and Zone Starts from a few years ago, liking Hall to some guy name Brodziak who played in some place called Edmonton.
http://gospelofhockey.blogspot.ca/2009/03/outliers-hall-and-nash-i-mean-draper.html

A. Hall would be a great pick up but man that 50 man contract cap is going to bite us in the ass if we want to sign a college FA. we need to trade away a contract badly, pretty sure Hall will be claimed by someone.

Signing College FA's is really high on the priority list atm? when did this become a big issue?

Justin Schultz was definitely a special situation. And you dont just go out and sign guys because they are NHL ready, they have to be good and fit into the system. If there's someone out there of import then sute but I think the focus should be finding guys who arent rookies anymore unless they are gifted --> Schultz

Think of the US college free agents like free draft picks with 3 to 4 years of maturation time. These guys can prove to be very valuable to an organization, but they are not going to come in and turn your team around instantly.

I know, I'm not saying they aren't an important avenue to be pursuing (after all, we just made a huge signing for Howsen to help out here...) just that I'm wondering when this became vogue if you will around these parts. I've read more about college free agents this year than any other I've followed the Oiler's blog circuit. Maybe its just a hangover from signing Schultz but its not like there are going to be players like him every year.

I'm pretty sure Tambellini won't be putting a claim in on Hall. Tambellini already speaks to Yzerman on a daily basis to get encouragement for the rebuild; so he had to know that Hall was on the market. Sorry guys but if he's not good enough for Yzerman there is no way Tambellini is touching him.

What contracts are coming up at the end of the year that we have down in the minors? And how does that balance out with kids we need to sign to entry level deals this summer? Anyone have that info on hand?

Watching TSN this morning and they mentioned three of the top NCAA free agents coming out this spring.The dman who is 6'8 from the czech republic sure would look good our blueline.So would the guy who plays Right wing.6'4 225.As much as you would like to sign an Adam Hall it probably would behoove the Oilers not ensure that guys like this aren't off the table first.Guys like Adam Hall come along all the time. If its me looking to trade a contract right now it would be Belanger on my hit list.But in that same breath I am not trading Belanger unless its for a guy with more ugly. A guy who can go to the hard places and look and play alot like Mike Brown.Got enough pansies on this team. At this point I'd rather have struds on my blueline than Potter who is so soft that he makes butter look like iron.fistric and Peckham need to be in this lineup on the bottom pairing.

What contracts are coming up at the end of the year that we have down in the minors? And how does that balance out with kids we need to sign to entry level deals this summer? Anyone have that info on hand?

I have to disagree with the signing of a college free agent. The Oilers as a team have alot of great up and comers what we need is the quality role players to play with them. I personally think that Hall is exactly what we need another guy that can win us lots of draws but isnt going to hurt us being out on the ice

I know, I'm not saying they aren't an important avenue to be pursuing (after all, we just made a huge signing for Howsen to help out here...) just that I'm wondering when this became vogue if you will around these parts. I've read more about college free agents this year than any other I've followed the Oiler's blog circuit. Maybe its just a hangover from signing Schultz but its not like there are going to be players like him every year.

oh and don't mind the sarcasm, its been a long week.

You're correct when you say that this is a fairly recent event in NHL circles. With 30 teams scouring the planet in search of prospects, things like the US college FA season are becoming higher profile events.

I read a quote from Lombardi about how the times are changing for NHL GMs. Roughly paraphrased, he said that it's no longer worth just trading soon to be UFAs away for picks, and that the trend these days is to try and keep every good player or prospect that you can. Players like Gardiner and J Schultz merely highlight another resource stream for teams who are constantly looking to improve. Cough *TambelHowsTavishLowe* Cough.